Memory, Mine and Others.

I spent much of the past two days talking to an older fellow.  He brought me to tears many times, and quite easily, but I enjoyed the time speaking to him very much.  He told me plainly things most people don't have the wisdom or bluntness to express.  He spoke to me about my father, my mother, the past, my future, and many other things.  And when I cried I was not the least bit sad.  He was intuitive enough he know, and frank enough to say things about me and my family that I know already, but somehow need to hear out loud.  He reminded me to keep close to my father, to look out for him because he's bad at worrying about himself.  He told me he feels he knows my mother through my father and I.  He told me she would have been happy to see this day, people touring the farm she helped my father plan.  Said he thought she probably had a hand in the timing of it, and I can't help but agree.  He talked to me about my plans for the future, and was the one voice to counter those I know here who tell me I shouldn't move North.  I helped him design the carving of a walking stick he was making to pass the time and he told me matter of factly that he would probably be completely blind within a few years.  He commented that I am more insightful and wise than most of my generation, to which I had to reply that I can't stand most people my own age and have kept the company of those older than me since I was a child.  

Looking at the things he makes I was overwhelmed with the desire to learn to do them as well.  Not really for the crafts themselves, though I admire them and they look enjoyable, but more to spend that time learning more than trades from him.  Perhaps gaining some of his blunt wisdom from the time.  Listening to him talk about this area made my worry for the time when there is no one to remember what he remembers.

I was thinking about my mother, as we spoke of her and as I looked around at all the things there that remind me of her.  The peonies that were her grandmother's, the trees she raised from cuttings, her roses everywhere. I was I could remember her better.  My memory has been faulty for years, but there are some things that I can't stand having forgotten.  

I have to find things to keep me busy tomorrow I don't want to go into my second job and let the day slip away, but I don't want to spend it rotting in my own head either.  

Anyway, I'll stop this disjointed rambling now, good night interwebs.

J.